Two years ago, officials in the NCAA Tournament called block/charge situations incorrectly about two-thirds of the time, according to subsequent grading by Adams and his crew of supervisors, as opposed to correctly assessing better than 90 percent of all other calls. Now, because the rules committee changed the definition of legal guarding position to being in place before the ballhandler began an upward motion to shoot, defenders rarely jump in front of opponents driving to the goal and fewer coaches encourage the tactic. The flop is all but gone from the game.

OK, the bad news? Well, there isn’t really bad news. There just could be better news. Adams acknowledges there has been periodic slippage during conference play from the progress made in non-league games regarding eliminating hand-checking and promoting freedom of movement for offensive players.

“I would say we’re not at the same level of diligence today as we were the first week of December. But I still think we’re ahead of where we were last year,” Adams said. “Of every five games, you probably have some measure of disappointment in one. And in the other four, players adapt and you have a free-flowing game. And if they don’t, you have Kentucky-Arkansas.”

The Razorbacks and Wildcats played an overtime game Jan. 14 that included 60 personal fouls, 81 free throws and took roughly 2½ hours to complete regulation play. “I would say that night our officials did exactly what they’re supposed to do,” Adams said.

Adams posted a recent memo to the NCAA officials' website challenging officials not to give up the ground they’d gained in enforcing the no-contact rules during the first month of the season, when scoring increased by nearly 10 points per game for the two teams combined, with field goal percentages up and turnovers down.

The so called “new rules” actually were already in the book when the committee decided last spring to move them from a section of explanation and interpretations to a more formally codified position.

All these actions are expressly forbidden:

• A defender keeping a constant hand or forearm on the opponent.

• A defender placing two hands on the opponent.

• A defender constantly jabbing the opponent by extending his arm and striking him with his hand or forearm.

• A defender using an arm-bar to impede the opponent’s progress.

The problem the NCAA faces in making changes such as these, as opposed to the NBA or any other professional league, is that its officials are independent contractors—838 of them, Adams said—who are assigned and managed by conferences during the season and the NCAA during the championship. He said it took the NBA about two years to fully integrate its move to eliminate handchecking last decade.

Adams said he’s depending on the conference officiating supervisors to manage the officials “according to those guidelines and rules” because the NCAA will expect games to be officiated “closer to what they were in November and December.” That means if teams grow accustomed to enhanced physicality during league play, they’ll be shocked back to reality when they start playing their most important games.

“It’s not quite to where we’ve accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish, but we honestly didn’t think that would happen until sometime in the middle of next year,” Adams said. “By this time next year, we’ll have settled into a game that is emphasizing freedom of movement, and we won’t be talking about ‘new rules.’”